Fine. The Night Language, out on November 14, 2017, tells the story of two young black men – Alamayou, the orphaned son of the Abyssinian emperor, and Philip Layard, an orphan from London’s streets – who find themselves thrown together by war. They’re outsiders who end up in the court of Queen Victoria. There they experience belonging and love for the first true time in their lives, before the inexorable tide of prejudice threatens to pull them apart.

The sun broke through in the afternoon, following two days of thick black clouds and downpours that had him spending his holiday running from doorway to café canopy. Now, finally, he could paint.

He unpacked his canvas and set up his easel on the path that ran along the blue ribbon of sea between Nice and Monaco. Mixing his oils, he gazed at the vista before him, acquainting himself with the particular shades of sunlight and the way they teased both color and shape from the land. Already he’d painted a good deal of the distant village, and in just two days’ time. A wonderful two days, he thought, in which he got thoroughly lost in his composition while occasionally humming a forgotten adagio. He worked without interruption, oblivious to everything around him. Thinking of nothing, only colors, tones, rims, and borders. Fellow visitors may have passed by him as he worked, or not.

Rhonda Hughes is the powerhouse behind indie publishing sensation Hawthorne Books. More than a decade old and located in the Pacific Northwest, I had heard of Hawthorne only vaguely until a couple of years ago, when suddenly they seemed to burst as a force to be reckoned with onto the publishing scene, with highly assertive and competent marketing, beautifully designed books, and the kind of wider distribution that seems, to many small indie presses, only a tantalizing dream. They’ve also developed a stable of writers from whom they put out more than one title in fairly close succession, in an old-school publishing model that favors loyalty and cultivating talent/brand above constantly trying to throw All Things New against a wall to see what sticks. Plus, they have a whiff of Chuck Palahniuk cool about them, which doesn’t hurt! Amidst her busy schedule, Rhonda was able to talk with me about what makes Hawthorne tick—and thrive—and some future exciting projects on their list.

The Luminist is David Rocklin’s debut novel. It will be released in the United States by Hawthorne Books on October 1, 2011. Set in nineteenth century Ceylon, the novel tells the story of Eligius Shourie, an Indian boy whose father is killed by English soldiers after a melee at the Court of Directors, East India Company. He becomes a servant in the house of Catherine Colebrook. Independent and driven, married to a fading Court Director, Catherine is chasing an obsession: the nascent art and science of photography. Eligius becomes her apprentice in the quest, and a bond neither of them expected is formed while around them, unrest between the native populace and the colonials occupying their country threatens to break open. The Luminist has also been sold in Italy and Israel.